Divergence
by Analise Drabble
Summary: Harry, Ron, Hermione, and Ginny start sharing the same dreams. What will happen when evil infiltrates this dream world of theirs? R/H, possible H/G......please r/r


q DIVERGENCE e

DIVERGENCE A fanfic by Ana

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_Please do not sue me, as I own absolutely nothing. Everything in this story belongs to J. K. Rowling, who I am not. However, if Ms. Rowling would like to give Ron to me, I'd be more than happy to take him. Ron rocks~~~Peace out peoples._

**Chapter One: The Other Hermione******

** **

For once in Ginny Weasley's life, it was not the alarm clock that woke her, but the sound of screams. They filled her ears, sharp and tormented, and her eyes flew open instantly. She sleepily flailed out her right arm, groping around the top of her nightstand in darkness for her wand.

It wasn't there.

Ginny shot up in bed and threw back her quilts, a shiver running down her spine as her feet hit the cold wooden floor. She peered around in the darkness and reached for her bathrobe. Tying its soft pink cords tightly around her slender waist, Ginny pushed open her bathrobe and stepped into the hallway.

The screaming stopped.

Ginny strained her ears and eyes against the darkness. The walls around her seemed to be glowing with a strange iridescent light that she couldn't quite place. A single framed picture at the end of the hall showed a portly looking red-haired wizard, probably a great-great grandfather of Ginny's, standing at attention toward the staircase leading to the top floor of the house in his shabby orange robes. Ginny peered closely at him and saw him raise a single pale finger and point upward. The screams immediately began again and, this time, Ginny could almost tell where they were coming from. They echoed strangely off the walls and reverberated over and over again until fading into muted silence. But Ginny was sure – almost sure – that they were coming from Ron's room.

Catching her breath tightly in her chest, Ginny looked back over at the picture on the wall, but the portly old wizard was no longer in his frame. Shaking her head furiously she raced up the steps, red hair streaming out behind her, and stood panting on the landing for a few seconds before reaching a trembling hand out to the doorknob. The screams were louder than ever before.

Ginny clutched the doorknob in her small white hand and turned it; the door was locked. The screams stopped abruptly and a thin jet of green smoke issued out from the crack at the bottom of the door. What was happening in that room? Ron was in there. Was – was Harry in there too?

Ginny's face quickly paled and she frantically began to pound on the door, the veins in her hand squelching and breaking from impact. Hysterical sobs began to wretch her trembling frame as she slowly lowered her hand and turned, defeated, from the door, from under which the same eerie green smoke was still pouring. She looked up sullenly and her eyes met a pair of brown ones nearly identical to her own, only they were several inches above her.

"Ron?" Her breath caught in her throat and she began frantically wiping tears out of her eyes.

"Ginny?" he hissed, giving her a strange look. "What're you doing in my dream?"

Ginny felt her head spin suddenly and Ron slid quickly in and out of focus.

"_You're_ dream?" she whispered back, though there was really no reason for her to be whispering. "I heard screams. I – I thought you were –" Ginny broke off and looked down at the floor.

"Where'd the screams come from?" Ron's face took on a look of anxiety.

"From your room. I tried to open it to see, but the door's locked."

Ron stepped forward and pushed her out of the way, wrapping his hand around the door handle. He turned it, pulled on it, shook it back and forth, and whispered silent obscenities at it, but to no avail. The door was locked tight.

"You're supposed to be in there," came Ginny's voice over his shoulder. He turned to see her gesturing at the door. "Where've you been?"

Ron let go of the door handle and leaned against the wall next to the door. Ginny saw him avert his eyes from her and could see his face turning red in the darkness. He racked his brain for something to say. An excuse….an alibi……He awkwardly pointed up at the ceiling.

"I was…..er…….in the kitchen." Ron looked up at his arm and felt his face growing red again. He swung his arm around so that his finger pointed down the stairs. "Yep, in the kitchen…..midnight snack……."

Ginny eyed him suspiciously but pressed no further on the subject. "Right," she muttered. "Now, what's all this nonsense about dreams?"

Ron's face drained of its blush and he looked down at her with a curious expression.

"I'm dreaming," he said simply. "And you're in my dream." He cast his gaze around the landing and shot his hand out at the doorknob once more, giving it a hard twist.

"Damn!" he muttered, turning away. "Why's my door locked……."

Ginny, however, seemed to be currently preoccupied with other thoughts. "So this is a dream," she murmured pensively. "Well that's good. But how can I be in _Ron's_ dream, when it feels like I'm in _mine_. I don't think I much like the idea of being part of someone else's dream……." A light went off suddenly behind her eyes and she remembered something she had once asked Ron. She looked up at him.

"So," she questioned, in what she hoped to be an entirely offhand manner. "Who _else_ is in this 'dream' of yours?"

Ginny smiled with vague satisfaction as Ron's ears turned flaming red and he became suddenly very interested in his shoelaces, which, incidentally, happened to be glow-in-the-dark neon pink. "No one," she heard him mutter.

Unsatisfied with his answer, Ginny cleared her throat to speak again, but was cut off suddenly by the sound of soft footsteps climbing the staircase behind them. They both whirled around and caught sight of a young girl coming into view at the top of the steps. She was rather pretty; her hair was swept gently around her face in elegant waves and her body was draped in very skimpy robes of vibrant red silk which revealed more than they covered.

"HERMIONE?" Ginny exclaimed incredulously, and her jaw nearly hit the floor.

Hermione, however, was looking quite puzzled. "Who _are_ you?" she asked Ginny, but her gaze fell on Ron and she no longer seemed to care. "_Ron_," she sighed in what she probably hoped was her most frustrated voice, her bottom lip jutting out in a slight pout (which Ron happened to think was very sexy of her). "I've been waiting down there for simply _hours_! Where have you _been_? You said you'd only be gone a few minutes!"

With great effort to pry his eyes away from certain areas of her body where her robes were particularly tight fitting, Ron looked her in the eyes and gave her a weak but consoling smile. He immediately turned on Ginny.

"Get – out – of – my – dream!" he snarled though clenched teeth into the empty space that Ginny had occupied only seconds before. The snarl fell from his face and he looked around wildly before the sound of mad giggles coming up from the floor caught his attention.

Ginny was sitting in a little heap against the wall, clutching a stitch in her side as hysterical laughter racked through her body. She was nearly in tears.

"You're dreaming about _Hermione_?" she exclaimed between giggles. "I never knew you thought of her like…..like _that_." She waved one hand toward Hermione's scantily clad body.

Ron bit his lip and turned bright scarlet in a mixture of embarrassment and anger. "C'mon, Hermione," he muttered dangerously, ignoring Ginny, who was now rolling on the floor, desperately trying to regain composure. "In here."

He moved toward the door to his room and, momentarily forgetting that it was locked, pulled on the handle. To his delight, then surprise, it flew open and a cloud of green smoke flooded out of it and stung his eyes. Ginny choked on the smoke and quickly stopped laughing, pulling herself to her feet next to Ron.

"What is it?" she whispered in his ear, a slight edge to her voice.

He shook his head distractedly and waved his arms around to clear some of the smoke. Ginny heard footsteps behind her and saw Hermione's shadow fall over her own. Ron stopped flailing his long arms and reached behind him, taking Hermione's hand in his. They stood together in silence as the smoke slowly cleared around them and a figure came into view; at first, it was nothing more than a blur sprawled out on top of a cluster of orange bed sheets, but then the edges slowly became more defined and they could make out what it was.

It was Ginny who screamed first. Perhaps she was the first to see, but maybe she was just the more sensitive of the three. Ron immediately clapped a hand over her mouth to stop her, then looked back into the room. His eyes grew wide as saucers and he screamed too, dropping Hermione's hand. Hermione eyed Ron silently for a moment, then pushed past him into the room. She walked slowly, almost reverently, over to Ron's bed and gazed down at the limp figure lying on top of it amidst the few remaining traces of wispy smoke.

It was a boy, his black hair disheveled and sticking out at odd angles all about his head, making him appear to have been electrified. The boy's eyes were opened wide and thick red blood was pouring from his mouth in frothy cascades. Hermione gasped as she noticed three large poison green and red serpents slowly twisting themselves around him; one around the leg, one around the body, and one around his neck. Hermione looked back over at Ron and Ginny, her eyes vacant.

"I think he's dead," she whispered.

Ron screamed again.

* * * * * * *

Sunlight flooded through the Weasley household and Ginny Weasley awoke to the sound of an alarm clock ringing madly in her ears. She reached out and shut it off, sluggishly pulling herself up out of bed. The wooden floor felt extremely warm under her bare feet. Stifling a yawn, she drearily walked over to her closet and pulled it open, trying to shake the peculiar feeling that was running through her veins.

"What an odd dream," she sighed to herself, pulling a light pink robe from her closet and holding it in front of her reflection in the mirror. She dismissed the thought and smiled shakily at her reflection, which smiled pleasantly back at her.

* * * * * * * 

Ron woke up in a cold sweat, his limbs trembling and his mouth frozen open in a look of absolute horror. He immediately threw back his orange bed sheets and looked over at the figure sleeping blissfully on the extra bed in his room.

Harry sighed in his sleep and rolled over under the blankets.

Ron grinned slightly and fell back onto his pillow, muttering "Just a dream" over and over to himself. Despite the enormous amount of sunlight pouring into his room through the window and the fact that the clock on the wall proclaimed it to be half-past noon, Ron managed to drift off to sleep and back into his dreams.

It was a familiar dream, one he had had very often in the past several months. Yet each time he awoke, he could scarcely remember exactly what had happened in it. The only image from it he was able to grasp was the fleeting silhouette of a beautiful girl who smiled as if the world would go on forever and told him she loved him. No matter how much he pondered the matter, when he was awake he just couldn't put her face to a name. Yet, while still in his dream, he knew her well.

"Hello, Ron," said Hermione, smiling brightly, and the world went on forever.

It was a dream, yes, but it was beautiful. He reached out and grabbed her soft hand, pulling her close to him. She smelled peculiarly of daffodils, brown sugar, and the musty scent of old library books.

"Surprised to see me?" he whispered as he wrapped his arms around her.

And then he kissed her.

* * * * * * *  

The next week flew by quickly for Ron. He spent most of his time practicing Quidditch with Harry, who had come to stay at the Burrow at the beginning of August for the remainder of the summer holidays before they would be off to begin fifth year at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Ron's twin brothers, Fred and George, often joined them for Quidditch practice, as they both held positions, along with Harry, on the Gryffindor Quidditch team at school.

Today, however, they had decided not to play. Mr. Weasley had managed to get the day off from his busy job at the Ministry of Magic in order to take Harry, Ron, the twins, and Ginny to Diagon Alley to buy supplies for the next school term. Harry had written to Hermione and they had arranged plans to meet at the Leaky Cauldron at precisely three o'clock in the afternoon.

At 2:59 p.m. on August 28th, a familiar cry echoed through the Weasley household.

"Fred! George! Get down here _this instant_!" Mrs. Weasley called up the stairs in frustration, stomping her foot on the floor. She turned, fuming, to her husband, who was waiting patiently by the fireplace, a bottle of Floo Powder in his hands. "What on earth could be taking them so long?" she demanded, as if her husband had any idea at all of the comings and goings of the twins.

"Molly, dear," Mr. Weasley began soothingly. "Why don't we just let Harry and Ron go on ahead. I'm sure they'll be fine on their own."

Mrs. Weasley cast Harry a worried glance.

"Mum, come _on_. We'll be fine!" sighed Ron, waving his hands in frustration.

Mrs. Weasley gave them an appraising look, then turned to her husband, who raised his eyebrows slightly at her. "Oh, all right," she consented. "But you boys make sure and go _straight_ to the Leaky Cauldron. These aren't safe times –"

"Thanks Mum! Bye!" Ron cut her off as he grabbed a pinch of Floo Powder from his father and threw it into the flames of the fireplace. "Diagon Alley!" he called loudly as he vanished into the fire.

Harry took a bit of Floo Powder in his own hands and turned to give Mrs. Weasley a reassuring smile. "We'll be fine, honest," he called back to her as he threw his powder into the fireplace. The flames inside of it burst up into a bright green. "Diagon Alley!" Harry called, stepping inside of them.

And then he was gone, too.

* * * * * * *

The first thing he saw when he pulled his face up from the hard wooden floor was Hermione standing over him, tapping her foot impatiently and brandishing a watch.

"Hello, Ron. It's 3:15. What took you?"

"Nice to see you too, Hermione," Ron grumbled back up to her as he felt Harry's hand grabbing at his robes and dragging him to his feet. He rubbed his nose, straightened his robes, and looked over to see Harry doing the same.

"'Lo, Hermione," said Harry when he'd finished readjusting his glasses.

"Oh, Harry, it's so good to see you," said Hermione excitedly. Then her voice took on a note of concern. "You _are_ all right, aren't you?" She peered at him anxiously.

Harry tried his best to smile reassuringly, something he had lately been developing quite a talent for. "I'm fine, Hermione. I'm perfectly fine."

Ron finished dusting off his now sooty robes and looked up at Hermione. For some reason, he felt his stomach do a little flip-flop and jump up to his throat. He swallowed hard and saw that Hermione was now staring at him curiously.

"Are you all right, Ron?" she asked, noticing the look on his face.

"Yeah, just a little dust in my mouth, I think. I'm okay." He pulled his eyes away from her and forced his stomach back down.

"Let's go get a table, shall we?" Hermione led Harry and Ron over to a small circular table in the corner of the pub and Harry went over to the counter to get them all Butterbeers.

"So, er, Hermione," Ron began once they were seated, eager to break the silence. "Did you, er, have a good summer?"

"What? Oh, did I have a good summer?" Hermione shook her head slightly and focused her attention on Ron. "Yes, I did actually."

"Oh," said Ron simply, at a loss for words. Then a thought began to cross his mind. "So did you do any, er –" he fiercely bit back the word snogging, "– traveling?" Ron struggled to keep his voice as light and casual as possible.

Hermione eyed him suspiciously but chose not to answer.

"You know," began Ron, trying a different approach. He could feel a wide variety of emotions begin to rise inside him. "It's been a really hard summer, what with You-Know-Who back in power and all." Ron grimaced as he said this. "It's hard to be certain about people. _Especially _people who've been trained in the Dark Arts. _Or_ people who's schools have a Death Eater as headmaster."

Hermione's face grew red at this and she started to reply, but at that very moment Harry returned with three steaming mugs of warm Butterbeer in his arms. He set them gently down on the table and plopped onto a chair, carefully choosing to overlook the hostile way in which Ron and Hermione were now staring at one another.

"So," he began, trying to break the tension mounting at the table. "Who do you think they'll get for the Defense Against the Dark Arts job this year? Maybe a banshee this time……"

Soon, the three were talking excitedly about their summers, their families, and life in general. Evidently, Hermione's parents hadn't been able to take the day off and had instead arranged for her to do her school shopping without them and then meet them on the Muggle side of the Leaky Cauldron at six o'clock sharp. As soon as Harry, Ron, and Hermione had finished their drinks, they filtered out of the little pub onto the sunny streets of Diagon Alley. As usual, Harry and Ron were eager to hurry of to look at Quidditch supplies, but Hermione urged them to look for Ron's parents first. After much persuasion, they grudgingly agreed with Hermione, but only after she'd promised to go with them to the Quidditch store as soon as the rest of the Weasleys had been found.

No sooner had they started looking than they spotted a large cluster of red heads standing at the check out counter in Flourish and Blotts, a notable wizarding bookstore.

"Oy! Harry! Hermione!" Fred called, spotting the two of them as they pushed their way through the large glass front doors, Ron trudging behind them.

Harry, Ron, and Hermione rushed over to the Weasleys, who were all very pleased to see that none of them had been harmed or injured in any way, with the possible exception of Fred and George, who probably could have used Ron's room as extra storage space for their massive joke collection, should something dire ever happen to him. Ginny looked especially excited to see Hermione and immediately pulled her away from the group and began chatting steadily in fast, giggly whispers.

"Girls," Ron muttered under his breath, turning to look at his mom, who was explaining to him that she had already taken care of his school supplies and that all he needed to do was go and buy some new quills. She handed him a small bag of silver Sickles.

"Now, Ron, this is for _quills only_. We can't afford to have you go off wasting it on a worthless pile of junk that you don't need any –"

"I won't waste it, Mum," Ron grumbled, cutting her off. He shoved the bag deep into his pocket and looked over at Harry, who cast a sideways glance at Hermione. She was still deeply immersed in conversation with Ginny, their hands waving animatedly as they talked.

"You coming, Hermione?" Ron asked her crossly.

Hermione glanced at him over her shoulder distractedly. "You two go on ahead of me, all right? I'll be there in a minute." She turned and went back to talking with Ginny.

Ron shot her a furious glance and grabbed Harry's arm, dragging him from the store with Mrs. Weasley's loud voice following them out, "_Do_ be careful, dears!"

An hour later Harry, Ron, and Hermione sat outside of Florean Fortescue's Ice Cream Parlor, happily licking on raspberry cones, parcels of books and potions ingredients piled on the ground beside them. Ron had a package of Dungbombs, three packs of Filibuster's Fireworks, six Chocolate Frogs, and one very inexpensive quill stuffed deep into his pockets. His small bag of Sickles had been completely emptied. Hermione had met up with Ron and Harry shortly after they had left Zonko's Joke Shop, but this had not prevented them from having to endure a lecture about lying and wasting (or, as Hermione put it, 'squandering') money. At this very moment, however, all thoughts of lectures and Sickles were gone from her mind as she sat eating away at her ice cream, feeling as if she were five years old.

Evidently, Ron had been having a similar thought, because a slightly sad looked crossed his face and he looked curiously down at his ice cream cone. "Do you think we'll be able to do this forever?" he asked.

"Do what?" said Harry.

"_This_," answered Ron, gesturing at his ice cream. "Just sit here and do nothing but eat sweets all day in the middle of Diagon Alley. It's not the kind of thing you can do when you're an adult."

Hermione sighed slightly. "I suppose we'll have to grow up someday."

"But when we do, can we still have ice cream?" asked Ron, giving her a childish grin.

Hermione smiled back but didn't answer. She instead let her gaze wander beyond Ron and over to Harry, who was staring vacantly down at his ice cream cone as it began to melt and dribble down onto his hand. Hermione noticed something peculiar about the way his eyes looked; they were cold and sort of closed off, making it nearly impossible to read his expression. She saw that Ron was looking at Harry, too. He shook his head and turned to give Hermione a sideways glance, his eyes full of questions. Hermione shrugged her shoulders and looked back down at her own ice cream, which was also slowly beginning to melt.

Even years later, Hermione would never be able to figure out why she chose that particular moment to start crying, perhaps it had something to do with the slightly haunted look on Harry's face. Whatever the cause, silent tears soon began to form in her eyes and the light purple color of her ice cream blurred in front of her. Hermione felt someone looking at her and turned to see Ron staring quietly at her, and odd look on his face, as if he had never seen something quite like her and didn't know what to make of it.

Hermione blushed and raised a hand to wipe the tears out of her eyes, but Ron stopped her by catching her hand in mid-air and squeezing it gently in his. Hermione grew even redder and looked down at her hand inside of Ron's. She could almost feel the heat coming from Ron's face as he began to blush furiously as well, dropping her hand instantly as if it were something extremely dirty and smelly, and turning quickly to look away from her. Hermione gazed beyond him and caught sight of Harry, who was looking at the two of them with a bemused expression on his face. Hermione flushed deeply, turned back to her own ice cream, and began to lick in once more as the afternoon sun shone high above them in its brilliant canvas of blue sky.

* * * * * * *

That night at the Burrow, Harry and Weasleys ate a quick but satisfying dinner and went to bed early, as they were all very much exhausted from a long day of shopping, with the possible exception of Fred and George who were grinning ear to ear as they skipped up the staircase to their room. As much energy as they had to spare, however, Ron lacked any at all and no sooner had his head hit the pillow than he fell into a deep sleep. The girl was there in his dreams and he was happy to see her again. Something about the way she looked at him made his pulse quicken and his stomach tie up in little knots. He was in his bedroom and she was with him, sitting next to him on his bed. But something about her didn't quite seem to satisfy him. It was as if something was somehow…….missing. He quickly dismissed the thought from his head and was just about to kiss her when the door to his room banged open. 

"Ron?" Ginny breathed from the doorway.

"Ginny? What're you doing here? This is the second time I've dreamt about you this month! I've never dreamt about you _before_."

"No, Ron, this is the second time this month that _I've_ dreamt about_ you_!" Ginny snapped exasperatedly. Her eyes moved from Ron to the figure sitting on the bed next to him and she suppressed a giggle. "Thanks for mentioning that I'm not important enough for you to dream about. But apparently _Hermione_ is. Still dreaming about her, eh?"

Ron blushed. "She's _not_ Hermione! I don't think about Hermione like that." Ron shuddered at the horror and absurdity of this thought.

Ginny walked over and slowly surveyed the figure. "She looks like Hermione to me. Same face, same body, same hair –"

"Well she's _not_," Ron sneered. He looked over at the girl sitting on the bed next to him. She did look exactly like Hermione and sometimes even _acted_ like Hermione. What was wrong?

Ginny smiled curiously and plopped down on the bed next to Ron.

"You _like_ Hermione, don't you?" she asked bluntly.

Ron's ears went pink and he wished his sister wasn't a girl so he could punch her out for suggesting such a thing. "Of course I don't," he muttered murderously. "She's my friend, that's all."

"Then why're you dreaming about her."

Ron looked sheepishly from his sister to the not-quite-Hermione on the bed next to him. "You know," he said slowly. "I'm not really sure." Then he peered down at Ginny anxiously. "You're not going to tell anyone that I dream about Hermione, are you?" he asked nervously, then slapped a hand to his forehead. "Wait…..you _can't_ tell anyone. Because you're nothing but a part of my dream!" Ron looked extremely pleased at this revelation.

"I've told you before, Ron," Ginny snapped. "This is _my_ dream…….and I'm going to wake myself up now."

She took one final look over at Ron, pinched her arm sharply, and disappeared.

Ron was alone now. Well, sort of. He looked over at Hermione silently.

"Who was that?" she asked.

"No one," Ron answered, and he pinched down on his own arm and disappeared, too.

* * * * * * * 

Breakfast the next morning was quite a strange affair indeed. Ron and Ginny kept eyeing each other suspiciously across the table while Harry cast puzzled glances between the two of them. Fred and George came down from their room halfway through breakfast still in their pajamas and sat down, yawning and stretching, at the table. Fred kept nodding off in his chair and George even fell asleep facedown in his bowl of oatmeal.

After Harry and Ron had eaten their fill of eggs, bacon, oatmeal, sausages, and toast, they hurried up the stairs toward Ron's bedroom to grab their broomsticks for a morning of Quidditch. In the hall on their was back downstairs, Ginny appeared suddenly in front of them, grabbed Ron by his arm, and hissed at him under her breath, "We need to talk."

"So talk," Ron grunted.

"Not here," Ginny whispered urgently, casting a look in Harry's direction and nodding at the room behind her.

Ron gave her a puzzled look and turned toward Harry, who just shrugged.

"Oh, all right," said Ron, following her into her bedroom. "But make it quick. I want to get out there before it gets too hot."

Ginny ushered Ron into her room and shut the door behind him. She began pacing the floor, a thoughtful expression on her face.

"Ron," she began tentatively, stopping in her tracks. "What did you dream about last night?"

"Huh?"

"You had a dream, didn't you? What was it about?"

Ron racked his brains. He could remember a girl……that same girl……and then…….Ginny had been there, hadn't she?

"What does it matter what I dreamed about last night?" he said offhandedly.

Ginny sighed exasperatedly. "Look, Ron," she said quickly. "I had a dream last night and you were in it, only you told me it was _your_ dream, not mine. Only it wasn't _your_ dream, it was _our_ dream –"

"Ginny, slow down."

Ginny took a deep breath and began again. "Did you have a dream last night?"

"Yes," admitted Ron.

"And was I in it?"

"Yes."

"And was _Hermione_ in it?"

Ron thought. That girl…….that girl…….the one he always dreamt about…….could that be…….could it _possibly_ be……..no, there was no way.

"There was a girl," said Ron slowly. "But I don't think it was Hermione."

Ginny sat down on the bed next to Ron. "O.K., listen to me and try to understand. About a week or so ago, I wrote to Hermione telling her all about this dream that I had had and about how you were in it but you kept insisting that it was _your_ dream. Do you follow me so far?" Ron nodded. "Good. Well, Hermione wrote me back with a six page long description about all these weird things that can happen in dreams, though she thinks most of it is entirely preposterous, but that's beside the point. The point is that she thinks what we had is called a convergent dream, which means that two people share the same dream at the same time. Basically, we both had the same dream and neither of us was the one being dreamt up. We were both real."

Ginny paused and Ron quickly closed his mouth, which he realized a little too late had been hanging open in disbelief. He let out a small laugh. "But you don't really _believe_ that, do you Ginny?"

Ginny looked away from him.

"You _do_," he said incredulously, giving her a funny look. "Look, I know Hermione's smart and all, and she knows a lot of stuff, but even she doesn't believe in weird things like Divination and……and _this_."

"Fine. Don't believe me if you want. But all that really matters," said Ginny slyly, "is that I know what you were dreaming about last night. You were dreaming about kissing Hermione, weren't you Ron? And the _first_ time we had a dream together, you were dreaming about her then, too. And then we dreamt that……." Ginny trailed off and looked away.

"We dreamt that Harry died," Ron finished for her, his face quickly paling.

Ginny shuddered, but pushed the thought from her mind. "Oh, I can't wait to tell Hermione that is wasn't just me dreaming that you were dreaming about her. It really _was_ you dreaming about her! Oh, she'll be so hap –" Ginny cut off abruptly and clapped a hand over her mouth.

Ron, however, didn't seem to notice her little slip. He was looking frantic and worried. "Ginny," he said urgently. "You can't tell Hermione that I was dreaming about her like that. I didn't even realize it was her! You can't. I swear if you tell her, I'll kill you."

Ginny gave Ron and appraising look, as if trying to decide whether he would actually go through with his threat. He must have been looking particularly murderous, because she nodded her head slowly and muttered, "All right. I won't tell anyone."

"Good," said Ron, looking highly relieved. "Now I've got to go and find Harry. He'll've been waiting."

And with that he left the room, leaving Ginny alone with her troubled thoughts.

* * * * * * * 

_Everything seems to be going quite nicely for our heroes, doesn't it? Fear not, gentle reader, for this will not last. The author is an evil soul who thrives on awkwardly nasty situations. I promise you plenty of Impossible Circumstances and Horrid Scandals in the chapters to come._

_For Canada and President Bush. We salute you!_


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